Still-Unfinished Business, by wisteria_
[Mod's note: I'm reposting this essay on behalf of the author because of formatting and LJ issues; this marvelous essay is entirely wisteria_'s.]
Last week I reread some of the reactions to "Unfinished Business". We were so adorably squeeful! I still love that episode, for many reasons unrelated to Pilots. But since this is sasa_hq, I'll focus on Kara and Lee. And my standard disclaimer: I'm a hardcore Kara fan, and while I really like Lee, I don't feel like I know him as well. So, this will probably be slanted toward her, though hopefully not at Lee's expense! Please chime in with your own interpretations - hell, chime in anyway! I'd love to discuss this episode. :)
So, here we go. I'm focusing only on the New Caprica flashbacks, and trying to remove it from the context of the season as a whole and especially the Quadrangle. If y'all want to discuss those in the comments, I'd love to hear it!
1. Foreplay
According to the timestamp, the flashbacks take place roughly four months after Baltar's election. Lee has obviously been commanding the Pegasus all this time. Kara's status isn't as clear. She has apparently been spending a lot of time down on New Caprica, since she's familiar with the goings-on; however, she's still on active duty. I assume she's visiting Sam during all her breaks. Everyone's settling into a routine, with civilization-building down on the planet, and what's left of the military doing pointless CAPs and watching its ranks thin as people find fresh air more attractive. As Kara says, "The war's over, Lee. So is all the good stuff." Dee has requested a transfer to Pegasus, which makes sense because the comms wouldn't require an experienced NCO to monitor patrols. She and Lee are taking their first steps toward commitment, though marriage hasn't yet been discussed. Same with Kara and Sam, who have more of a separation between them because they live in two completely different worlds, both physically and socially. Both pilots seem to genuinely love their partners, though the love isn't yet strong enough for a formal commitment - they're still mostly at the "dating" stage.
Dismissing Sam and Dualla as mere foils to the Pilotlove is quite easy, but not entirely fair to any of the characters or relationships. Kara and Lee seem to genuinely care about their partners, and in many ways they could be valid and healthy long-term relationships or marriages. But of course I’m not here to talk about them. Let's move on to Pilots.
What about Kara and Lee together? Still friendly, of course, but not particularly close. This is certainly informed by the K/S makeout session in LDYB2, and stretches back to "Scar" and the shooting and perhaps farther. They reaffirmed their friendship in TCH, but the sexual tension is now literal - it has taken on a physical component after their failed attempt at drunken sex. As anyone who's dealt with morning-after awkwardness with a friend knows, you might get the friendship back but the kissing will always be the proverbial elephant in the room. When they run into each other at the start of the flashbacks, Kara's relaxed but Lee is very conscious of her being chipper with Sam at her side. Later, they catch each other's eye at the open-air bar, but they glance away awkwardly. And when they're dancing, they're both all smiles with everyone else, but once they're put together, the sexual tension could be cut with a knife - as dionusia's crack-poem said, "They eye-frakked as they do-si-do'ed." ;)
2. The rest of your life, Kara. Is this how you want to spend it?
This episode has several time-gaps that really intrigue me. The first is between the bar/dancing and the imaginary cabin. As someone whose name I've forgotten pointed out, the characterization in the post-dancing scene really stands out because of how it circumvents expectations. Kara has been drinking, but she's not in her usual wild/giddy party girl persona; if anything, she's quite introspective as she sits there staring at nothing. Lee, on the other hand, is downright chipper and visibly intoxicated, making bad (but funny!) jokes about her drinking Anders under the table. I mention the time-gap because I'm curious what led them to go get their coats (Kara's wearing hers) and then head out into the woods - her cabin site must've been at least a half-mile away... which leads me to wonder why nobody heard them screaming later, but hey!
While she flouts more regs than she follows, Kara has always been as devoted to the military as Lee is. Suddenly she's telling Lee that she has scouted this spot for a possible cabin -- a permanent home. Flying is a bore, what with the pointless CAPs and lack of excitement, and more and more soldiers are moving down to the planet. She's considering the same for herself. That takes Lee by surprise; he'd never considered that she might leave the service. I don't think she has really made a decision yet; her attitude seems more like, "What the heck, it might be interesting." Although she hasn't mentioned Sam yet - and she's unconcerned enough about him being passed-out that she just leaves him there on the dirt - Lee immediately assumes that Samuel T. Anders is the cause. "Give me a tour of the future life of Kara Anders." She's incredulous - who said anything about marriage? Now, I don't see marriage as uncharacteristic for her, given that she was engaged to Zak. She might sleep around (though that's debatable), but she does seem open to making that kind of commitment to a man. Heck, in TEoJ she said it was a divine oath. She and Sam seem compatible and love each other; if Lee were out of the picture, I'd be toasting them at their reception. But Lee's awkward joke changes everything.
They begin to circle each other, just like their present-day versions are in the boxing ring. Lee is now entirely focused on their relationship. He's been near-obsessed with it since she rescued Sam from New Caprica, and perhaps all the way back to his impulsive kiss in "Home I". As in many aspects of his life, Lee thinks in absolutes. Object permanence. In his mind: Kara loves Sam and is considering a house down here, so of course they'd get married. If she moves down there, she's giving up the military for the rest of her life. She's giving up on them. The problem is that, for Kara, there's no "them" right now. Not to denigrate her feelings, of course, but she doesn't think in the same absolutes or in terms of "forever". As I said above, she considers marriage a lifelong commitment, but Lee's approach here throws her for a loop. She cares for Lee and considers him her best friend, but things have been so weird between them lately. I think she is deeply, profoundly in love with Lee... but right now she's not thinking in those terms, and she might not have even realized it yet. Denial is a key construct of her characterization, after all. Shove things away so she won't have to deal with them. The thing with Sam is easy. The thing with Lee... is the hardest, scariest thing in her life. And now, instead of dancing around it, he's making her face the issue. "Is this who you want to spend it with?"
Kara, don't you want to spend it with me?
And then he kisses her.
3. Kara Thrace Loves Lee Adama
Whenever I imagined Pilotsex, I assumed it would be frantic and intense, much like what we saw in "Scar". I was spoiled for this scene in UB, but I still didn't expect it to be so tender. "Making love" sounds corny, but that's really what it was.
(To get a bit pervy: I dare you to analyze the sex itself! What happened between the kiss and the nakedness, and did they bring a blanket? Who comes first? Why is he practically sitting upright at the end? And given the placement of his head, is Lee Adama, in fact, a breast man? ;)
I'm struck by the faint smile on her face after his first kisses. She returns the kisses softly, sweetly, the opposite of how we'd assume she would kiss him. She seems happy. And Lee.... oh, Lee. He knows just how profound this moment is. Another time-jump, then we see them near the end of the lovemaking. More kisses, accompanied by Bear McCreary's K/L love theme. She rolls to the side. They're both overwhelmed, and Lee looks like he has had an epiphany. Not only is he sated from his orgasm, but he has finally achieved the (romantic) thing that means the most to him: he has made love to Kara Thrace. She's his now. To paraphrase an awesome observation from bop_radar months ago: she has accepted him sexually, which was one of the main barriers between them. He romanticizes sex, especially where she's concerned. The spark between them is now physical. They've had this incredible, tender lovemaking, and that's it. Now they're together - a real couple. How can they go back from this? And while I understand and don't blame him for thinking that, that's where everything falls apart.
As I said earlier, Lee thinks in absolutes. Kara doesn't. Her first words are, "Well, that makes things more complicated." If Lee is overwhelmed and convinced they'll be together now, then Kara is thinking about the repercussions. As far as he's concerned, they should break up with their partners immediately. Kara's not ready for that. While she might be willing to break up with Sam and be with Lee, it's just not that simple. But Lee is so confident and overjoyed that he has to "shout it to the skies", and she gets caught up in his giddiness. It's so delightful and gorgeous to watch, though even without our knowledge of the rift, the sense of doom still hovers in the background.
Much has been made of the shouting, and of how Kara shouts her love in the third person. I don't think pronouns are important here, though, and this is where another time-jump comes into play. I strongly believe that they both said "I love you" between the initial kisses and the sex itself. They're too comfortable shouting it for that to be their first time. Lee has always been so vocal about his feelings for her. I can easily see him saying he loves her to pieces, and then surprised when she says the same. It's another reason why he's so enthralled during the sex. Maybe this is the romantic in me, but again, the yelling comes too easily for it to be the first time, and he's so confident that she'll yell she loves him too.
4. Is it true?
When I asked for a discussion topic this afternoon, dionusia said: Since we've been talking about that night on New Caprica, how about something about that? Namely, what you think was going on in Kara's head. Some anti-K/L people think that she doesn't really love him because she keeps fleeing from him, but I love that interview that Katee gave before the ep aired--the one that said that what caused the rift actually showed how much Kara really loves him. I don't deny that Kara does love Sam too, but this seems so right to me.
Here are the original Katee quotes from Galactica Magazine - thank goodness I saved a printout!
"I think that they have found a very good way of explaining the rift between Starbuck and Apollo that is going to shock fans. It shocked me! But it made complete sense. When I read the flashback scene, I cried. Because it was something this character would do, and it was something that I'm sure a lot of people have done. It goes to show how much she loves Apollo, but how terrified she is of that."
And in response to a question about Trucco: "He brings such different storylines for Starbuck, because you know that she's got these feelings for Lee, and she doesn't want to act on them - or she does want to act on them."
So, does Kara really love Lee, or is she just humoring him in her post-coital bliss?
I vote "yes", and I don't think that's just my pro-Kara and pro-Pilots biases. :) She loves him deeply, and for a hundred reasons I couldn't begin to list... though I'd love if y'all would list them in the comments! The quotes above suggest that Katee chose to play her that way, and we've seen from the start that Jamie plays Lee as madly in love with Kara. They really are the most important people in each other's lives, and K/L is so epic that love *has* to be at the core.
But if she loves him, why does she frak things up so tragically? Ah, the big question. I'll focus more on Kara here, just because Lee's emotions and attitudes are written all over his face. Kara's such a mystery, and one of the episode's main flaws is that we don't see anything from her point-of-view. We don't get a direct glimpse of her motivations, so we have to extrapolate.
Another problem with the time-jumps: what happened between "Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama!" and Lee waking up alone? They fall asleep wrapped around one another, which suggests that if she was freaking out the night before, she didn't let him see it. Yet we see fear and indecision in her eyes after he kisses her, implying that she is already having second thoughts. I don't think it's regret, though. She's scared. Terrified, even. As she said earlier, she doesn't know where they'll go from here. But she lies down with him and rests her head on his chest, lying there with him for hours. Did she sleep, or did she spend all that time obsessing over those fears? I'd vote for the latter.
The tricky thing about POV is that ours as viewers is quite different from the characters' perspectives. We can see the breadth of their relationship and believe that they could be utterly amazing together. Lee certainly believes it. But, in Kara's eyes, they're only going to hurt each other. She lies there with him and thinks about KLG1, "there is no us", her shooting him, and all the times she's caused him pain or just frakked him over. She doesn't have the same omniscience that we do. Kara's both a pessimist and a pragmatist. Whereas Lee loves her so much and can see how beautiful they'd be together, Kara simply can't. If they break up with their partners and become a couple, how long before she hurts him again? She killed Zak because she let her personal feelings get in the way of doing her job; will she kill another Adama because she was too blinded by love? She's a frak-up, full of self-loathing, convinced she doesn't deserve a happy ending. How long before Lee gets fed up with dealing with her and dumps her on her ass? As I've said before, she loves Sam because being with him is easy; she has the control in their relationship. If their marriage failed, she'd hurt but would get over it. Nothing about Lee is easy, though. If Lee left her, she'd be devastated. Broken. She's too terrified to take that risk. Better to cut it off without any hope, or they'll destroy one another.
But does she love him? I'm not certain I've proven that here! I'd write more - including the morning-after and the boxing - but this is already 2,600 words. ;) I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on all this, especially as it relates to Kara/Lee as a whole and what it means about their future.
Thanks for reading! God, I love these characters, and I still have faith that they'll make their way back to each other... and that it'll be gorgeous.
Last week I reread some of the reactions to "Unfinished Business". We were so adorably squeeful! I still love that episode, for many reasons unrelated to Pilots. But since this is sasa_hq, I'll focus on Kara and Lee. And my standard disclaimer: I'm a hardcore Kara fan, and while I really like Lee, I don't feel like I know him as well. So, this will probably be slanted toward her, though hopefully not at Lee's expense! Please chime in with your own interpretations - hell, chime in anyway! I'd love to discuss this episode. :)
So, here we go. I'm focusing only on the New Caprica flashbacks, and trying to remove it from the context of the season as a whole and especially the Quadrangle. If y'all want to discuss those in the comments, I'd love to hear it!
1. Foreplay
According to the timestamp, the flashbacks take place roughly four months after Baltar's election. Lee has obviously been commanding the Pegasus all this time. Kara's status isn't as clear. She has apparently been spending a lot of time down on New Caprica, since she's familiar with the goings-on; however, she's still on active duty. I assume she's visiting Sam during all her breaks. Everyone's settling into a routine, with civilization-building down on the planet, and what's left of the military doing pointless CAPs and watching its ranks thin as people find fresh air more attractive. As Kara says, "The war's over, Lee. So is all the good stuff." Dee has requested a transfer to Pegasus, which makes sense because the comms wouldn't require an experienced NCO to monitor patrols. She and Lee are taking their first steps toward commitment, though marriage hasn't yet been discussed. Same with Kara and Sam, who have more of a separation between them because they live in two completely different worlds, both physically and socially. Both pilots seem to genuinely love their partners, though the love isn't yet strong enough for a formal commitment - they're still mostly at the "dating" stage.
Dismissing Sam and Dualla as mere foils to the Pilotlove is quite easy, but not entirely fair to any of the characters or relationships. Kara and Lee seem to genuinely care about their partners, and in many ways they could be valid and healthy long-term relationships or marriages. But of course I’m not here to talk about them. Let's move on to Pilots.
What about Kara and Lee together? Still friendly, of course, but not particularly close. This is certainly informed by the K/S makeout session in LDYB2, and stretches back to "Scar" and the shooting and perhaps farther. They reaffirmed their friendship in TCH, but the sexual tension is now literal - it has taken on a physical component after their failed attempt at drunken sex. As anyone who's dealt with morning-after awkwardness with a friend knows, you might get the friendship back but the kissing will always be the proverbial elephant in the room. When they run into each other at the start of the flashbacks, Kara's relaxed but Lee is very conscious of her being chipper with Sam at her side. Later, they catch each other's eye at the open-air bar, but they glance away awkwardly. And when they're dancing, they're both all smiles with everyone else, but once they're put together, the sexual tension could be cut with a knife - as dionusia's crack-poem said, "They eye-frakked as they do-si-do'ed." ;)
2. The rest of your life, Kara. Is this how you want to spend it?
This episode has several time-gaps that really intrigue me. The first is between the bar/dancing and the imaginary cabin. As someone whose name I've forgotten pointed out, the characterization in the post-dancing scene really stands out because of how it circumvents expectations. Kara has been drinking, but she's not in her usual wild/giddy party girl persona; if anything, she's quite introspective as she sits there staring at nothing. Lee, on the other hand, is downright chipper and visibly intoxicated, making bad (but funny!) jokes about her drinking Anders under the table. I mention the time-gap because I'm curious what led them to go get their coats (Kara's wearing hers) and then head out into the woods - her cabin site must've been at least a half-mile away... which leads me to wonder why nobody heard them screaming later, but hey!
While she flouts more regs than she follows, Kara has always been as devoted to the military as Lee is. Suddenly she's telling Lee that she has scouted this spot for a possible cabin -- a permanent home. Flying is a bore, what with the pointless CAPs and lack of excitement, and more and more soldiers are moving down to the planet. She's considering the same for herself. That takes Lee by surprise; he'd never considered that she might leave the service. I don't think she has really made a decision yet; her attitude seems more like, "What the heck, it might be interesting." Although she hasn't mentioned Sam yet - and she's unconcerned enough about him being passed-out that she just leaves him there on the dirt - Lee immediately assumes that Samuel T. Anders is the cause. "Give me a tour of the future life of Kara Anders." She's incredulous - who said anything about marriage? Now, I don't see marriage as uncharacteristic for her, given that she was engaged to Zak. She might sleep around (though that's debatable), but she does seem open to making that kind of commitment to a man. Heck, in TEoJ she said it was a divine oath. She and Sam seem compatible and love each other; if Lee were out of the picture, I'd be toasting them at their reception. But Lee's awkward joke changes everything.
They begin to circle each other, just like their present-day versions are in the boxing ring. Lee is now entirely focused on their relationship. He's been near-obsessed with it since she rescued Sam from New Caprica, and perhaps all the way back to his impulsive kiss in "Home I". As in many aspects of his life, Lee thinks in absolutes. Object permanence. In his mind: Kara loves Sam and is considering a house down here, so of course they'd get married. If she moves down there, she's giving up the military for the rest of her life. She's giving up on them. The problem is that, for Kara, there's no "them" right now. Not to denigrate her feelings, of course, but she doesn't think in the same absolutes or in terms of "forever". As I said above, she considers marriage a lifelong commitment, but Lee's approach here throws her for a loop. She cares for Lee and considers him her best friend, but things have been so weird between them lately. I think she is deeply, profoundly in love with Lee... but right now she's not thinking in those terms, and she might not have even realized it yet. Denial is a key construct of her characterization, after all. Shove things away so she won't have to deal with them. The thing with Sam is easy. The thing with Lee... is the hardest, scariest thing in her life. And now, instead of dancing around it, he's making her face the issue. "Is this who you want to spend it with?"
Kara, don't you want to spend it with me?
And then he kisses her.
3. Kara Thrace Loves Lee Adama
Whenever I imagined Pilotsex, I assumed it would be frantic and intense, much like what we saw in "Scar". I was spoiled for this scene in UB, but I still didn't expect it to be so tender. "Making love" sounds corny, but that's really what it was.
(To get a bit pervy: I dare you to analyze the sex itself! What happened between the kiss and the nakedness, and did they bring a blanket? Who comes first? Why is he practically sitting upright at the end? And given the placement of his head, is Lee Adama, in fact, a breast man? ;)
I'm struck by the faint smile on her face after his first kisses. She returns the kisses softly, sweetly, the opposite of how we'd assume she would kiss him. She seems happy. And Lee.... oh, Lee. He knows just how profound this moment is. Another time-jump, then we see them near the end of the lovemaking. More kisses, accompanied by Bear McCreary's K/L love theme. She rolls to the side. They're both overwhelmed, and Lee looks like he has had an epiphany. Not only is he sated from his orgasm, but he has finally achieved the (romantic) thing that means the most to him: he has made love to Kara Thrace. She's his now. To paraphrase an awesome observation from bop_radar months ago: she has accepted him sexually, which was one of the main barriers between them. He romanticizes sex, especially where she's concerned. The spark between them is now physical. They've had this incredible, tender lovemaking, and that's it. Now they're together - a real couple. How can they go back from this? And while I understand and don't blame him for thinking that, that's where everything falls apart.
As I said earlier, Lee thinks in absolutes. Kara doesn't. Her first words are, "Well, that makes things more complicated." If Lee is overwhelmed and convinced they'll be together now, then Kara is thinking about the repercussions. As far as he's concerned, they should break up with their partners immediately. Kara's not ready for that. While she might be willing to break up with Sam and be with Lee, it's just not that simple. But Lee is so confident and overjoyed that he has to "shout it to the skies", and she gets caught up in his giddiness. It's so delightful and gorgeous to watch, though even without our knowledge of the rift, the sense of doom still hovers in the background.
Much has been made of the shouting, and of how Kara shouts her love in the third person. I don't think pronouns are important here, though, and this is where another time-jump comes into play. I strongly believe that they both said "I love you" between the initial kisses and the sex itself. They're too comfortable shouting it for that to be their first time. Lee has always been so vocal about his feelings for her. I can easily see him saying he loves her to pieces, and then surprised when she says the same. It's another reason why he's so enthralled during the sex. Maybe this is the romantic in me, but again, the yelling comes too easily for it to be the first time, and he's so confident that she'll yell she loves him too.
4. Is it true?
When I asked for a discussion topic this afternoon, dionusia said: Since we've been talking about that night on New Caprica, how about something about that? Namely, what you think was going on in Kara's head. Some anti-K/L people think that she doesn't really love him because she keeps fleeing from him, but I love that interview that Katee gave before the ep aired--the one that said that what caused the rift actually showed how much Kara really loves him. I don't deny that Kara does love Sam too, but this seems so right to me.
Here are the original Katee quotes from Galactica Magazine - thank goodness I saved a printout!
"I think that they have found a very good way of explaining the rift between Starbuck and Apollo that is going to shock fans. It shocked me! But it made complete sense. When I read the flashback scene, I cried. Because it was something this character would do, and it was something that I'm sure a lot of people have done. It goes to show how much she loves Apollo, but how terrified she is of that."
And in response to a question about Trucco: "He brings such different storylines for Starbuck, because you know that she's got these feelings for Lee, and she doesn't want to act on them - or she does want to act on them."
So, does Kara really love Lee, or is she just humoring him in her post-coital bliss?
I vote "yes", and I don't think that's just my pro-Kara and pro-Pilots biases. :) She loves him deeply, and for a hundred reasons I couldn't begin to list... though I'd love if y'all would list them in the comments! The quotes above suggest that Katee chose to play her that way, and we've seen from the start that Jamie plays Lee as madly in love with Kara. They really are the most important people in each other's lives, and K/L is so epic that love *has* to be at the core.
But if she loves him, why does she frak things up so tragically? Ah, the big question. I'll focus more on Kara here, just because Lee's emotions and attitudes are written all over his face. Kara's such a mystery, and one of the episode's main flaws is that we don't see anything from her point-of-view. We don't get a direct glimpse of her motivations, so we have to extrapolate.
Another problem with the time-jumps: what happened between "Kara Thrace loves Lee Adama!" and Lee waking up alone? They fall asleep wrapped around one another, which suggests that if she was freaking out the night before, she didn't let him see it. Yet we see fear and indecision in her eyes after he kisses her, implying that she is already having second thoughts. I don't think it's regret, though. She's scared. Terrified, even. As she said earlier, she doesn't know where they'll go from here. But she lies down with him and rests her head on his chest, lying there with him for hours. Did she sleep, or did she spend all that time obsessing over those fears? I'd vote for the latter.
The tricky thing about POV is that ours as viewers is quite different from the characters' perspectives. We can see the breadth of their relationship and believe that they could be utterly amazing together. Lee certainly believes it. But, in Kara's eyes, they're only going to hurt each other. She lies there with him and thinks about KLG1, "there is no us", her shooting him, and all the times she's caused him pain or just frakked him over. She doesn't have the same omniscience that we do. Kara's both a pessimist and a pragmatist. Whereas Lee loves her so much and can see how beautiful they'd be together, Kara simply can't. If they break up with their partners and become a couple, how long before she hurts him again? She killed Zak because she let her personal feelings get in the way of doing her job; will she kill another Adama because she was too blinded by love? She's a frak-up, full of self-loathing, convinced she doesn't deserve a happy ending. How long before Lee gets fed up with dealing with her and dumps her on her ass? As I've said before, she loves Sam because being with him is easy; she has the control in their relationship. If their marriage failed, she'd hurt but would get over it. Nothing about Lee is easy, though. If Lee left her, she'd be devastated. Broken. She's too terrified to take that risk. Better to cut it off without any hope, or they'll destroy one another.
But does she love him? I'm not certain I've proven that here! I'd write more - including the morning-after and the boxing - but this is already 2,600 words. ;) I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on all this, especially as it relates to Kara/Lee as a whole and what it means about their future.
Thanks for reading! God, I love these characters, and I still have faith that they'll make their way back to each other... and that it'll be gorgeous.